I’d like to begin by thanking Dan for giving me the opportunity to contribute to Personal Branding Blog, which I will be contributing to on Saturdays. I recently had a chance to read Seth Godin’s new book Tribes.
My introduction to Tribes
I was at my desk a few months back, when the CEO of my company sent an email saying that he was purchasing a copy of Seth Godin’s Tribes for anyone in the company who wanted to read it. Given that it was Godin’s new book, I was extremely eager to get my hands on it.
In the book, Godin goes on to explain that the social media tools we have access to today, give people the ability to make a difference in their communities, workplaces, and the world. The book discusses how our world needs leaders now more than ever before, and explains how it’s easier now too.
The world does need leaders, and while Tribes does a great job at explaining why, I think it could have done a better job at explaining how to execute.
Personal branding enables tribe success
A tribe’s success is only as successful as the people leading it. The part of Tribes that was missing was how you go about building a personal brand to allow you to effectively lead.
Barack Obama’s call that together we could change America, could not have been executed without his brilliant personal brand. Godin’s Tribes would have you believe that anybody could have done what Barack Obama did, but in reality, Barack Obama had YEARS of building his brand to the point where he could make a call for national change.
Godin goes on to explain that his book is not a how-to, but with only broad mentions of leadership, and without much practical advice. I feel like the success of a tribe really comes down to how you tactically execute and build a brand over time.
Passion drives us all, but it takes hard work to build up credibility, create a following, and to effectively champion an idea.
This is one of the reasons personal branding has attracted me, and one of the reasons I believe Schawbel’s book, Me 2.0, will be successful. It will go into detail about how you build your personal brand, how you organize, and how communicate.
Have a passion? I don’t think it’s enough to lead. You need to lead with a plan.
